


Just A Legacy To Protect

by Valkyrie98



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man Far from Home - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix it of sorts, I wrote this instead of doing my actual school work, NOT endgame compliant, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers, The Blip, Tony is peters biological father, no beta we die like men, or as I know it, the snapening, typical Spiderman teen angst but also justified
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 19:50:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20120728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkyrie98/pseuds/Valkyrie98
Summary: After the Blip and the compound battle Peter tries to find his place in the world. Feeling out of sorts with what should be his family, feeling abandoned by his father and lost in the post Thanos world he finds solace in his trip to Europe. Turns out, not everyone who looks alright in glasses can be trusted and maybe his father wasn't as distant as he thought.Or;Peter thinks his dad moved on without him and Shit Ensues.





	Just A Legacy To Protect

They all came back. 

Not right away, it took time and work and a small dose of luck. But they did come back. 

When they did come back, the world had changed. It moved on without them, after all, 5 years is a long time to wait for the impossible, even if it did eventually happen. 

Spouses had moved on, parents had made new families, children had grown up. And the returned were now the ones left to pick up the pieces. To find their best friend was now married in Europe, that their parents hadn’t dealt with the loss well at all and weren’t around anymore, or that all their friends had grown up without him. 

The returned were doing about as well as the spared in the initial months after the decimation. 

Not well at all. 

Peter reflected on all the implications of the 5-year gap as he stared at the passing scenery on the way to his Dad’s new house, with his new wife and new child. His new Family. 

“Hey kid, nearly there.” Happy glanced back at him, brows furrowed at Peter’s unusually solemn visage. Peter glanced up, meeting Happy’s eyes and giving him a small smile to indicate he heard him before returning to his melancholic brooding. 

What if Peter didn’t fit in anymore? No longer needed when his dad finally had a real family, picture perfect complete with the country home and an alpaca. He always thought the two of them were the perfect little imitation of a family, just the two of them, well five of them really. The makeshift family that gave him two uncles and an aunt/pseudo-mum now turned legal step-mum. 

He sighed again, watching his breath fog up the glass, reflecting the grey gloom that rushed past him, amplifying his current mood. 

There was one thing he couldn’t get past. He wasn’t mad at his dad for marrying Pepper, in fact he was ecstatic about that, or as ecstatic as he could be in his current demeanour. It wasn’t really even Morgan, nothing against his sister herself but more the fact of her existence set him in unease. But that unease was really just a symptom of a greater issue, the real reason he was dreading the summer holidays he was stuck at the lakehouse. 

The abandonment. 

He’d heard the stories. Steve had told him about how it was his picture that convinced his dad to create time-travel and save the universe, to snap his figures and loose his arm because of it. 

But if it was really because of him, how did his dad move on for 5 years? He knew that his dad had not been working on time-travel for 5 years, so why take so long? Was Peter not worth it? Was he not enough? Did he do something wrong? He knew his dad didn’t approve of him stowing away in the space donut to join him. Didn’t particularly like the Spider-Man thing on the whole either. 

Had he seen it as an opportunity to start over?

To have the picture perfect family he always wanted? Without the accidently son he had been saddled with for 17 years, preventing him from having that picket fence suburban fantasy?

He was jolted out of his thoughts as the car came to a stop, he hadn’t noticed they were stagnant until Happy opened his door and he all but fell face first out of the car, saved by his seatbelt in a way he was sure was not what the creators had in mind. 

“Woah, you alright kid?” Happy’s hand had shot out catching his shoulder, aiding his seatbelt in it’s action and pulling Peter upright again. 

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine, thanks Happy.” Peter got his bearings again and sat up, undoing his seatbelt and getting out of the car to help Happy with his bags. 

He eyed the front door warily as they approached, sure their arrival could not go unnoticed with the no doubt extravagant security Tony Stark had adorned the house of his wife and child with. 

To his surprise, it was Morgan who figured them out first, flinging to door open when they were mere feet away and throwing herself at Peter who had to drop the duffel he was carrying to catch her. 

“Uh, hi?” He said hesitantly as Morgan gripped him tightly, squeezing the life out of him before he’d even made it inside.

“You’re here! Daddy said you were coming today but it’s already after lunch and I thought you’d forgotten or gotten lost or gone away again like Daddy used to say you had-”

“Woah, slow down, Morgan, everything’s ok.” Peter said as Morgan spit out words faster than his brain could keep up with, using one breath to get out all the words she deemed necessary for the situation. 

Suddenly she let go, squirming to get down before sprinting back inside, calling for her parents and screaming about her brother’s arrival. 

“That was…” Peter trailed off, looking at Happy for help.

“A lot.” Happy concluded, nodding at the duffel Peter dropped and leading their way into the house proper. 

Pepper had come to greet them at the door, fussing over Peter and hugging him for a little longer than usual, evidently sharing her daughters own worries in some small part of her usually organised and rational mind. 

“Welcome home Peter, we’ve missed you. Tony’s been redesigning the Towers penthouse floors so next year we’ll live in the city during school. He says it’s because both the kids will be at school but I think having to be in recovery here while you’re there has been hard for him. That’s a heads up by the way, you won’t be out of his sight for a week straight if he has his way, let me know if you need to escape.” She winked at him before taking his bag and leading Happy towards his room, leaving Peter to take in the house. 

It was more homey than Peter had anticipated, having grown up with his fathers high modernism, marble everything, sleek white benches and borderline minimalist sense of style. The warm wooden tones and finishes were foreign to him and hit him again with that sense of loss, as if the man he knew had died when he had, leaving behind this new, overtly paternal and familial man he didn’t know. 

It wasn’t that his dad was never paternal, they used to be inseparable, he knew he was his father’s world and never doubted his love for a second, this second-guessing of his place and priority in his dad’s life was so shockingly new it physically hurt him when he thought on it too long. 

Before he could fall again into the abyss of doubt and blame, Morgan was returning, pulling Tony along behind her who was still looking a little worse for wear but so much better than he had been after the snap. He had actually died for a while but Doctor Strange managed to bring him back and stabilise him, some combination of modern science and ancient magic had given him back his father and he was not about to question the validity of whatever had been done.

“I thought I heard trouble.” His dad said, crossing the room as fast as his body would allow him to bring Peter into a hug tighter than Pepper and Morgan’s combined. 

If he thought Morgan’s nonsensical fears had been the worst of it he was sorely mistaken. Morgan was part Tony, but Tony was All Tony and nothing could rival his ability to overthink and second-guess a situation he had no direct control in. 

“Had us worried for a bit there Pete, Happy said you guys were gonna be here by lunch.”

“The weather did a number on the traffic in midtown, getting out was a nightmare.”

“Good old New York traffic, I don’t miss her.”

They stood in silence for a moment, still clinging on to each other as though their lives depended on it. Tony reassuring himself that his son was whole again, not fading away in his arms lightyears away. Peter convincing himself that his father was alive, not dying right in front of him, surrounded by dust and blood, listening to his heart stutter and stop as his uncle held him back.

Fears lightened but no less real, they pulled away and Peter missed his father swiping at his eyes before looking at him and smiling. 

“So, going to Europe next week, excited?”

He couldn’t help the genuine grin that crossed his face at the prospect of his trip. He thought of Ned and MJ, missing them already in the two days since school had ended. 

“Yeah, it’s gonna be fun, Ned has this whole ‘American Bachelors in Europe’ idea but I told him that Europeans don’t actually like American’s all that much, he’s deadest on his plan though so it’ll be fun to watch it pan out.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at his son’s distinct lack of collusion with his best friend. “What’s your plan then, no American Bachelor-ing for you? Got your eye on something closer to home?”

Peter spluttered and turned red. “What? No, no plans, nothing going on, no steps, what are you on about, how many meds are you on right now? I think you need to lie down, you’re talking nonsense.”

Tony grinned and backed off, he had a week to weasel it out of him, Peter was the best at keeping secrets after all, he’d tell him eventually. 

“Alright alright, no plans, got it. What about lunch? You hungry?”

Even as Peter shook his head his stomach growled. Happy and Peter had stopped for takeout along the way when it became clear they were going to miss lunch but the super-metabolism wasn’t about to let the prospect of food pass it by. 

“Ok, food for the Spider-Baby coming up.” Tony turned the lead the way into the kitchen, his two kid trailing along behind him. 

Peter dropped himself unceremoniously into a bar stool and watched Tony getting out leftover’s and putting a plate together. 

A small hand was tapping his side and he glanced down to see Morgan with her arms outstretched and looking at the chair next to him, too tall for her to climb into without help.

He reached down and picked her up with ease, surprised again by how light other people were too him since the bite, it was always a small shock to feel how strong he really was when he consistently pulled his punches on patrol. Right now, holding his little sister, he could have easily mistaken her for a sack of feathers for all he felt her as. 

Pausing for a second at this revelation, he placed her in the chair next to him which she proceeded to stand on and stare unsettlingly at her father until he turned around, a plate of food ready for Peter in his hands. He paused and raised an eyebrow at her, stepped forward to hand Peter his food. 

“Can I help you?” 

“Juice Pops!” She whisper yelled.

“You just had lunch little miss, maybe later.”

Morgan levelled her gaze at him and very seriously said; “Shit.”

Peter choked on the food he was swallowing and started to cough, looking wide-eyed at Tony who hadn’t reacted at all to the display Morgan was putting on. 

“Did mum let you borrow her word?” He asked, looking a Peter to make sure he wasn’t actually going to choke before folding his armed and looking at his daughter. 

Morgan actually looked a bit ashamed at this and shook her head. 

“Thought so, remember what I said about extortion, you can’t use that card with Peter he knows it’s Peppers word.”

Morgan pouted and climbed down off the chair, running off to do whatever it is 5 year old’s do when they get caught trying to extort their parents for juice pops. 

“Uh, what was that?” Peter asked, glancing between where Morgan had just disappeared and his father. 

“She heard me say shit once and I gave her juice pops afterwards, now she thinks when she says shit around people, I’ll pay her off. It was actually the night I discovered time-travel so her odds were already in her favour, she doesn’t know that though.”

At the mention of time-travel the lead weight in Peter stomach had returned. He let out a small “oh” and continued eating. 

An unfamiliar silence engulfed them. Never before had they experienced awkward silences. Sure they weren’t the best at talking about their feelings but somehow they had gone 17 years living together without truly feeling uncomfortable like this before. 

Not even home for 10 minutes and every time he turns around its like being hit by a freight train as everything he thought he knew had changed. 

“So, there anything you wanna do before your trip? Need to go get travel gear and all that?” Tony asked, shifting as he felt the tension in the room. 

Peter shrugged, mouth full of food and nodded a bit. “Not really, there’s a couple of things but I don’t need that much.”

Tony nodded and they sat in silence until Pepper, Happy and Morgan emerged again from the depths of the house. 

With the 5 of them it was simultaneously better and so much worse. Seeing the comfortable interactions between the other four left Peter yearning to understand the new order of things. How Happy had become more empathetic with Morgan, more friendly with Tony. How Tony and Pepper had become so domestic, so much like the parents Peter had secretly always wanted. How the room seemed to revolve around Morgan as she interjected with her ideas or opinions, asking questions and requesting food or attention. 

Watching this Peter felt his heart melt and sink at the same time. It was his family but it wasn’t his family. In a way it felt almost right, that he was an outsider. Right that his secret fear that he wasn’t good enough in the shadow of Tony Stark, of Iron Man, gave him a sick sense of validation. That he was right about something, even if that something was terrible. 

He finished his food and slipped out of the room, looking for his own. In his departure he missed the worried look from his dad and Pepper, and the secret look they shared between them, a silent debate on whether he needed comfort or space. Pepper won, she usually did, somehow convinced Tony without words that Peter needed time to adjust, to let him see his room and have some time to carve out his own space in the house that wasn’t yet his home. 

The rest of the week passed in similar fashion. Peter was often ambushed by his sister demanding to play with him or otherwise be in her company. Pepper would speak carefully, aware of her position as the mother he had somehow always had but not like this. Careful not to imply anything, placing no expectations on Peter to call her mum or other such connotations of becoming his step-mother. 

Being with Tony was the worst. The ache of familiarity combined with the weight of the change and the unknown made interacting with his father almost painful. The longest they spent together was when Tony took him to shop for his trip, a few hours out of the house, just the two of them, like old times. It was almost normal for a while, until, inevitably, the blip came up, the time that had somehow defined Tony and abandoned Peter. 

When the time came for him to leave for his trip he couldn’t be more grateful or guilty. Grateful to get away from the suffocation he felt being in the new house, guilt for feeling grateful. 

Tony drove him to the airport, jittery about letting his son be so far away from him where anything could go wrong and he couldn’t stop them in time. He swallowed his fear for the hope of his child having some normal teenage experiences in light of everything he had been through in his young life. 

Just before it was time for them to part he pulled Peter aside, away from prying eyes and ears. 

“Hey, I’ve got something for you.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. 

“I know, everything that happened, I understand how much you must resent me and what I did- don’t deny it, I’ve seen you moping around. But nothing that happened changed how I feel about you Peter. Every single day you were gone was a stab to the heart, I missed you fiercely and entirely, I’d lost my only kid. I-” he took a shaking breath, willing the tears in his eyes to go away before looking Peter straight on again. “Everything that happened, everything I did, is not a reflection of how much I care about you Peter, you were and always will be the centre of my world, my first born, my son. I want to give you these, as proof but also to tell you that you’re your own man, you’ve grown up so much, seen so much more than you should have to, dealt with more than you should have to in your young life but god, have you handled it well. You’ve made me so immeasurably proud Peter, you’re the next big thing you know. Not Spider-Man, you, Peter Stark. For the next Tony Stark, I choose you. It’s always been you.” He produced a sleek black glasses case emblazoned with the stark industries logo and handed them to Peter. 

Through teary eyes Peter took them, looking at his father. “Dad, I-“

“Peter! We gotta go!” Ned called, interrupting the exchange. 

Tony smiled softly at his son. “We’ll talk more when you get back, but I wanted to give you these so I know you’ll be safe. I’m right here if you need me.” He tapped the case as he said that and hugged Peter tightly. “I love you, be safe.”

With that he let go and nudged Peter to his class who were all moving to board the plane. Peter resisted for a moment, mouth open as though he had a speech of his own before he frowned and shut his mouth, nodding and moving towards Ned’s waving figure. 

Tony watched his son go with tears in his eyes, watching him as far as he could and staying until he saw the plane take off safely before he finally turned to leave, eyes no more dry, heart no less heavy. 

\----- 

The EDITH glasses perplexed Peter, for one thing, they seemed to be made in anticipation of his father’s untimely death. For another, he wasn’t sure he was deserving or even ready for such a gift. He tucked the case and it’s content away in his bag, forgetting about them until everything proceeded to go to hell. 

First the water monster in Venice; trying to minimalize the damage and help the new mysterious hero take it down. 

And then Director Nick Fury decided to hijack his holiday. 

He was sure that if his dad knew what was going on Nick Fury would be nowhere near him, somehow, he knew instinctually that Iron Man wasn’t privy to the plans of S.H.I.E.L.D if they were coming to him. His dad had called after seeing the news about the monster, seemingly already in the suit and on his way to Europe before Peter convinced him it was fine and taken care of and he should just stay home with the girls; that he could handle himself. 

Turns out he fully regretted not letting his dad come and help out. As he fought the fire monster he couldn’t help but wish his dad was there, helping him out. But that small feeling was outweighed by his elation over befriending Beck. Someone to talk hero with who wasn’t his dad, who took him seriously and knew he could hold his own. A mutual respect he had always wanted from the heroes who had always seen him as Iron Man’s kid. 

Then, the glasses, those damned glasses. 

He’d given them to Beck in a moment of weakness and resentment towards his father. Resentment for putting such a power in his hands when all he wanted was to have a normal holiday, to be a normal kid. Resentment to even be a Stark, growing up in the public eye in the shadow of his father’s brilliance, never able to find space for himself as his own person. Then he met someone who he thought was better, was ready, was the kind of person his dad would be proud of, would have worked with, would have trusted. 

God he couldn’t have been more wrong. 

All that led him here, to being hit by an actual train, which, it turns out, was far worse than he theorised at his dad’s place in the week before the trip. As he clawed his way into the train before promptly passing out. 

\-----

He woke up in a jail cell wearing an aggressively orange jersey as a blanket. Breaking the lock without care for who was watching he hobbled his way outside and managed to borrow a phone. 

“Dad? I messed up, can you come get me?”

\----- 

The jet landed smoothly in front of him in the field of tulips. His dad was rushing out before the stairs where all the way down and running to his son.

“Stop!” Peter yelled, flinching back from his father and holding out his hand. “Just, prove to me your real, tell me something no one else would know.”

Tony stopped, his heart breaking for his son, looking so broken and vulnerable in front of him and could only imagine what had happened to make him mistrust his own father so much. Could barely stop his blood from boiling over and tracking down the asshole who had managed it. 

“It’s me, it’s your dad, its Tony. Peter Plea-“

“No! Everybody knows that! Prove that it’s really you, please.” Peter voiced cracked on the last word as he looked desperately at his father.

“Ok, ok. I-I invented time-travel in one night because as much as I thought my second chance was worth everything, I couldn’t leave my first one behind. I ran away from his memory for so long because he was my everything and I failed him. I got him into so much trouble, and he paid the ultimate price for it and I couldn’t live with it. So I moved on and told myself it was all I could do. The night I solved time-travel was the best and worst night of my life. I had found a way to save my son while realising I had abandoned him in my own misguided belief that it was the right thing to do and, god it nearly killed me. I had lived so long with the knowledge that I killed him, to live with the knowledge I could have saved him was so, so much worse. Peter, I failed you, I failed you in such a degree that I left you slip away from me even in life, believing that it was for the best I let you be your own person because surely that would be better than anything I’ve done. Most of all I never let you be yourself. I gave you EDITH in the hopes of inspiring you to be better than me when I never even stopped to appreciate that you already are. My secret, Peter Stark, is that you are my biggest success and my biggest failure, and only one of those things I can take credit for because you are more than I will ever be. You’re not the next Tony Stark, you’re the first Peter Parker.” 

The use of his mum’s name made Peter break down, falling into his father’s arms as both of the cried their regret and their love of each other, apologising and forgiving. 

In that moment, Peter’s worst day had given way to his best revelation; he wasn’t living in the shadow of the great Tony Stark, he was standing right next to him in the sunlight, soaking in the world around them as they worked together to make it right, to make it better. He wasn’t a knock of Tony, he was his own person, and he could do anything with or without his father standing beside him. 

Tony guided his son back to the plane and sat him down, Happy had gotten the first aid out and together they patched him back up. 

“What do we do now, no EDITH, no Iron Man, no Spider-Man and that Beck guy is still running around with your shit, what are you gonna do?” Happy asked, packing away the suture kit and looking at the two Starks.

Peter looked up, a new fire in his eyes and stood. “I’m gonna kick his ass.”

“Hell yeah we ar-”

“No, dad, I love you but you’ve made me realise something and this is something I’ve gotta do on my own. It’s my mess and I’m gonna clean it up.”

Something in his son’s eyes stopped him from arguing. There was nothing in heaven or hell that could stop him going after his son if things went sideways but right now, he knew he wasn’t needed, this wasn’t his fight. 

“Alright then Spider-Man, you’ll need a suit.” With a press of a button the back of the plan opened to reveal a compact suit making lab. “Go wild, it’s all yours.”

Peter grinned and Tony sat back watching his son work, pride engulfing him so completely as he watched Peter work. 

“He looks like you so much right now.” Happy said, looking as Peter worked with the holograms on his arm.

“No, he looks better.”

“Can’t argue with that Boss.” Happy said, dodging Tony’s playful swipe and starting the plane again and heading for London. 

\----- 

It was a hard fight to watch for Tony, the first time he’d seen his son fight without getting suited up and joining him, watching his 6. It was both enrapturing and liberating to watch him work, realising that maybe Peter was more capable with his power’s than he had given him credit for but just as intelligent as Tony always knew him to be. 

When it was over Tony made his way to where he last saw Spider-Man only to see his son kissing his scary friend from decathlon. He grinned and wolf-whistled at them, earning him the middle finger from both before MJ picked up a mace (where did she get a fucking mace from?) and headed back towards where she’d come from as Peter stared after her with stars in his eyes. 

“Hey, good job kid.”

“I learnt from the best.”

“Yeah Pep’s great with that rescue armour isn’t she.”

Peter rolled his eyes and slumped on his dad, adrenaline fading and all his injuried over the past 24 hours catching up to him. 

“Ow.” He whined and Tony laughed lightly. 

“Time to go home?” 

“Yeah, time to go home.” Peter agreed, feeling lighter than he had since he came back. Everything was going to be ok, besides, what else could really go wrong after that?

**Author's Note:**

> Ok listen,,,,, I have a lot of feelings about FFH and am in denial about Tony's [REDACTED] so,,,, here's 4k words of me projecting my feelings you're welcome. 
> 
> Also I know I haven't updated the field trip pic and im the Worst but I promise I'll have another update soon I Swear. (she said, like a liar)


End file.
